Bandits

Bandits were robbers and outlaws who operated in gangs in isolated and lawless areas. Organized bandit gangs infested the mountainous areas of Italy, Spain, Sicily, Greece, Iran, and Turkey by the 1880s; by the time of Pope Sixtus V's death in 1590, he had executed 5,000 Italian bandits, but there were more than 27,000 more at liberty in central Italy. Marauding was one of the most common peasant reactions to oppression and hardship, as well as a symptom of warlordism; by 1930, China's total bandit population was 20 million. Although most banditry had been dealt with by the mid-20th century, the term is still used to refer to thieves.